Keywords

Wankel compressor, space-borne, prototype, compression, heat pump

Abstract

For aerospace applications, vapor compression heat pump can be used as thermal control system to collect the heat from electronic devices and transport heat to radiator by which heat can be rejected to space. Heat pumps can be used in two cases. The first consists of raising the temperature of heat energy so that the amount of radiator surface required is reduced. The second involves situations where heat cannot be directly rejected by radiators, because the heat sink temperature is higher than that of the heat source. However, the key problem is to make a small and lightweight refrigeration compressor. In order to meet the need for aerospace applications, an innovative miniature hermetic Wankel compressor was proposed and designed in this paper. We fabricated the components such as shell, cylinder, rotor, piston gear, stationary gear, rotor and stator of motor. A compressor prototype was manufactured by integrating these components. The experimental system was built to test the performances of compressor prototype. The effects of condensing temperature, compressor rotation speed and refrigerant charge on the compressor performance were obtained. The influences of tilt angle on the performances of compressor were also investigated. The results indicated that the prototype have good performance, reliability and micro-gravity adaptability.